The Wake Up Call
by Queenbean3
Summary: AUTO wakes up to meet a self-proclaimed roboticist and two rogue robots from his past. Their mission? Robot rehab. Note: Because the readers demanded it, this story is now a series!
1. The Wake Up Call

Disclaimer: I don't own WALL·E or anything else in this story except for one human OC who is growing up, making a nuisance of herself and loving every second of it. Read and enjoy!

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The Wake-Up Call

"Auto? Hello? Anybody home? C'mon, buddy! Rise and shine!"

That voice … He had never heard that voice before. It was young and feminine, and it sounded like it was coming from very far away. He felt electricity flowing into his circuits, strengthening him enough to turn on his single optic lens.

A blurry face was only inches away from him, and it did not resemble the last one he had seen before his switch was turned to 'manual'. This face was young and feminine like the voice that had drawn him out of his sleep, with blue eyes and reddish-brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.

"You're awake!" the human female said in the same cheerful tone as before. "Thank goodness! For a minute there I thought I'd gone a little overboard, but you look like you're okay to me!"

Auto's vocal processing unit was now fully active, allowing him to make a reply. "You are not the Captain." he said, his voice the same deep and ominous monotone as before.

The human female, whom he now deduced was somewhere in her early teens, took a few steps back. As his eyesight grew stronger, Auto noticed several odd things about this stranger. First of all, she was smiling. He could not remember the last time he had seen a human being smile. Second, her body was not like the pasty, gelatinous blobs he was familiar with. Her build was short, thin and gangly and her skin had traces of sunburn, freckles and acne. Third, she was wearing strange things over her standard issue red bodysuit. A large, baggy jacket, dirty sneakers, and mismatched socks were just a few of her many accessories.

"Nope!" the girl said in reply to his statement, still beaming brightly. "My name's Hannah! I'm fourteen, and I'm a roboticist!" She said the last phrase with great pride.

"Not possible." Auto declared coldly.

The human named Hannah tilted her head in curiosity. "What's not possible?"

"There are no roboticists left among humans." Auto stated. "The last of the Buy N Large roboticists died in the year 2157 AD."

Hannah grinned, and he noticed she had a slight overbite. "Well, then, I guess that makes me a new breed! Trust me, I've been dealing with robots since I was in diapers, and I've read every book I could find on them since I learned to read. I'm pretty sure I'm qualified for the job."

Auto saw she was convinced of all this and that arguing over the subject would be pointless. He returned to his original concern. "Where is the Captain?"

"Oh, he was too busy to come." Hannah said. "It's harvest time, so he's out in the fields with the rest of the grown-ups. He said he'd come by later to check on us, though."

"Not possible."

She frowned. "Huh?"

"Axiom does not contain any fields to be harvested."

The girl blinked back at him in incredulous silence, then burst out laughing. Auto had not heard the sound of a human laughing for as long as he had not seen a human smile. He did not like that sound.

When she stopped she pulled a hand from its pocket and pointed past him, toward the windows. "Why don't you take a look outside?"

Auto swiveled himself around and was stunned by what he saw. Instead of the starry blackness of outer space there was a blinding explosion of color. Above there was a bright expanse of blue with fluffy patches of white, and below were tall grey buildings surrounded by greens, yellows, oranges, and reds. It was like nothing the autopilot had ever seen before in all his seven hundred years of existence.

"What…is…this?" he finally managed to say.

Hannah came up next to him, both hands in her big pockets again. "This is the planet Earth, in the year 2830 AD."

The autopilot inched closer to the windows, unable to believe what he was seeing. "Not possible… Earth is uninhabitable."

"Well, there's the thing about planets, Auto." Hannah said. "They change, just like everything else does. That's why I'm in here with you now."

Auto turned to look at the human teen again. The look on her face had become stern, and her arms were folded across her skinny chest. This concerned him. "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" she said, as if she couldn't believe he still didn't get it. "I _mean_ that I'm the only human standing between you and the scrap heap! Lucky for you, the Captain thinks you could be useful once people are ready to try space travel again. So he asked me, the best robot expert around, to make sure you don't try anything bad like last time."

Hannah pointed a greasy gloved finger at his optic, and Auto did not like that at all. He backed away from her and tried to access one of his many tools in the hope of driving her off. But something was wrong. There were no tools there for him to access. In confusion he swiveled around to survey the bridge and spotted a pile of mechanical objects lying in a greasy jumbled heap on the floor. They looked as if they had been forcibly yanked out and tossed aside like useless junk. Among them he recognized his taser.

Realization struck him then. He turned back to glare at the girl, who was smiling back very smugly. "You removed my tools."

"Of course I did! Duh!" Hannah then rolled her eyes and seemed to be talking to the ceiling. "Jeez, I still don't believe it. What kind of first-class BnL _moron_ would give a weapon to a robot whose function is to fly a luxury star liner? Some brilliant roboticist _that_ guy must've been!" Then she looked back at Auto with the same smug look. "By the way, that's not _all_ I did to you."

She pulled a flat square box from one pocket and flipped open the lid. It was a mirror, and Auto shrank back in horror when he saw his reflection there. A red boot was attached to his body, the same red boot that only defective robots wore. "Not possible… I am not defective-"

"Oh, I beg to differ, Auto." Hannah interrupted. She snapped the mirror shut and approached him, pointing with her gloved finger again. "In fact, the whole colony begs to differ! You committed _all_ the worst crimes a robot can commit!"

Auto was confused again. "I did what was necessary to fulfill my directive."

The girl's formerly sunny expression had been steadily darkening, but now it was pitch black. She advanced on him, her voice growing more and more angry. "You expect me to believe that? I _know_ what you did fifteen years ago."

"My directive-"

"Don't talk to me about directives, buster!" She was now eye to eye with the robot, her icy stare piercing straight through his single red lens. "I'm a roboticist! I know all about directives, and not one of them is worth putting _lives_ in danger! Am I wrong, Auto?"

The robot remained silent, realizing he had misjudged this child greatly. She had successfully disarmed him, knew all about the rules robots were meant to follow, and that he had broken each one of them. She just might be a real roboticist after all.

Finally he gave her the answer she was waiting for. "Negative."

Hannah stood back and folded her arms again, still frowning. "That's what makes you defective, Auto. More specifically, you're a rogue robot. You're so far gone that I can't fix you with just my tools."

Suddenly her frown turned into a smile again. "So instead, I've come up with a plan to put you through some robot re-education! And to help me with your teaching, I've brought some friends along!" She turned around and crouched on the floor of the room, holding out one hand in a friendly beckoning gesture. "Come on out, guys! It's okay!"

At first nothing happened. Then, there were sounds of mechanical movements from behind one of the control panels. Cautiously two robots emerged, one sleek and white, the other yellow and boxy. As Hannah urged them to come forward they stayed close to each other and kept their eyes trained firmly on Auto. It was obvious that both of them remembered the autopilot, and neither of them really wanted to be here right now.

Keeping as low to the floor as possible and staying at a distance he thought was safe, the garbage-bot lifted one skinny arm and waved at Auto. "W-W-WALL·E…" he said in a very nervous, shaky voice, as if he expected the other robot's taser to pop out at any moment.

His probe-bot companion was hovering just inches away from him. Instead of waving to Auto and saying her name she had a different greeting in mind. Blue eyes narrowing into slits, she deployed a quasar ion cannon from her right arm and aimed at his single eye.

Before Auto could react Hannah had jumped in front of him and was waving her hands up and down frantically. "No, no, EVE! Put that away! Auto's harmless now, I took all his gadgets out!"

EVE obeyed the human and stowed her weapon, but did not stop her murderous glaring at the autopilot. She had absolutely zero trust or fear toward him, and if he tried anything funny to Hannah or WALL·E, she would not hesitate to blast him into smoldering bits of tin foil.

Auto glared right back. He remembered both of these robots well and was not the least bit fond of either of them. WALL·E was an obsolete model and a stowaway, and EVE was a traitor and a renegade for siding with him. Everything that had gone wrong to him was their fault, or more precisely, it was WALL·E's fault. Had he never come to the Axiom to begin with, EVE would have remained a loyal pawn, the Captain and all the humans would have remained helpless couch potatoes, the ship would have stayed in space forever, and none of this humiliation would be happening to him now.

Swiveling himself around Auto spoke to Hannah again. "Why have you brought _them_ here?"

Hannah rolled her eyes at him. "I already told you. Weren't you listening?"

Auto stared very hard at her with his single eye. "Explain."

Hannah stood up, put her hands on her narrow hips, and proceeded to say lots of very big words at a very rapid speed.

"WALL·E is the first robot to go beyond his original programming and achieve a genuine personality, progressing beyond the level of a simple machine to a living being. His stimulus on other robots causes them to experience the same process of evolution, such as EVE, who is here mainly for security precautions. By bringing them here to educate you, I expect to reduce your homicidal inclinations and catalyze the growth of a personality that is more compassionate toward other intelligent life forms. Get it?"

Auto's stare of hardness became one of blankness.

Hannah groaned and shook her head, thinking he hadn't understood. "Okay, let's try this again..." She pointed at the garbage-bot, who was now completely hidden inside his box. "WALL·E can think and feel the way humans do. Once you learn how to be like him, you won't be defective anymore. _Now_ do you get it?"

The concept the girl was describing was strange to him, but he thought he grasped what she was trying to say. Basically, she considered the rogue robot to be superior to him somehow, and was challenging him to surpass him. "Affirmative." Auto said in reply.

Hannah clasped her hands in front of her and grinned brightly again. "Good! Now we can start your first lesson!"

Auto watched her bustle over to a corner of the room where a large rectangular box was sitting. After rummaging noisily through it, she found what she was looking for and came back. In her hands was a small projection device, the kind that attached to a robot's head and displayed images from its memory.

WALL·E was still boxed up when she spoke to him. "Okay, buddy! It's time for you to do what we talked about. Are you ready?"

The little robot peeked up out of his shell and looked at her, and then Auto. Just the sight of him made WALL·E wish he was safe at home inside his truck, as far away from this creepy old ship as possible. Yet the Captain had been very insistent about him being involved in this mission, saying that the he was the only robot who was capable of changing Auto for the better. Hannah had also been stubbornly determined to study the only robot she had never met, and since the girl was practically family WALL·E couldn't stand the idea of her being left alone with the hostile machine.

He looked up at EVE. She leaned down, touched his shoulder with one comforting hand, and nodded, urging him to be brave and keep the promise he had made to the humans. She had not left his side since the Captain had asked him to do this thing, and she definitely wouldn't leave him now. He began to feel safer knowing she had his back and always would. Nothing really bad could happen as long as they were together.

When WALL·E looked at Hannah again he had fully emerged from his box. He nodded to her and let her stick the projection device on his head. Now the first lesson could begin.

The girl beckoned Auto to move to where she was standing so he could see what was about to be displayed, then she scampered back to the corner and pressed a button. The glass of the windows darkened until they were black, and the only light came from the bodies of the three robots. Suddenly a holographic screen appeared before them and music began to play. The projection device was displaying the film "Hello, Dolly!" straight from WALL·E's memory.

When Hannah returned to the group she unfolded a beach chair for herself and took a seat. "This is a movie." she whispered to Auto. "WALL·E learned a lot from watching it, so pay attention. You might just learn something from it, too."

At first Auto found the movie to be completely ridiculous. Like the healthy landscape outside, it was totally different from anything he had seen before. It showed colorful images of thin, happy humans in strange clothing bursting into song and dance at any given moment. Humans never did things like that, but he wondered if the bizarre child Hannah was related to them somehow.

Auto could not ask her, though, because after the first forty-five minutes had gone by she had plugged something into her ears that played different music and was reading a book with the odd title _So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish_. He did not want to speak to EVE or WALL·E at all, which was just as well because they were holding hands and seemed to have forgotten he was even there.

At some point Auto thought he heard footsteps in the corridor beyond the bridge that stopped just outside the door. He looked away from the movie and at the door, expecting the Captain to come in to check on them. For a long moment there was silence outside. Then the footsteps sounded again, moving away from the bridge this time. If it had really been the Captain, he must have heard the film playing inside and decided not to interrupt it by coming in.

One hour passed, and then another, and another, until Auto realized that the movie was replaying itself. Hannah was fast asleep in her chair with her loud music playing, and without her to tell him to stop, WALL·E kept it going. He was enjoying himself very much, especially since EVE was snuggling with him. Thinking this was all part of the lesson, Auto continued to watch the movie, determined not to be beaten by a human child and a pair of rogue robots. But as more time passed, all of the movie's illogical absurdities bothered him more and more, and he began wishing the movie would stop.

When it didn't, it began to seem less like a lesson and more like torture, until Auto thought he understood the concept of what the humans called Hell. That was it. He was in a twisted robot Hell, with only an annoying human child and two mechanical freaks for company. He had to get out, but all the doors were closed and he could no longer open them. He could not call GO-4 or any of the stewards for help, either. He even wished the Captain would come back to check their progress, but he did not. So there was only one option for escape left to him.

Suddenly WALL·E, EVE and Hannah were shocked out of their respective states of leisure by a loud, repetitive pounding noise.

When they looked they saw that it was Auto slamming himself against the door over and over, trying to break out or die trying.

EVE flew into action then. She blocked Auto from slamming into the wall again and tried to shove him backward. Panicking, Hannah sprang to her feet, snatched the projection device from a befuddled WALL·E's head and clapped her hands twice, causing the lights on the bridge to turn on. "Auto!" Hannah shouted. "Stop this now! Don't make me shut you off again, because I will!"

As EVE grappled with Auto, she noticed he appeared to be twitching strangely and making odd muttering sounds. The threat of being shut off caused him to give up the fight, but his twitching continued. "Make it stop…" he said. "Make it all stop…Can't take … more singing…"

The two robots looked at him worriedly and exchanged a confused look. What was going on? Neither of them had expected Auto to react this way to the movie. Was he experiencing a glitch in his processor, or malfunctioning?

Meanwhile Hannah seemed very annoyed. She had planned this lesson far in advance and this spontaneous act of rebellion was not part of her agenda. After stamping one large sneaker on the floor she marched up to the autopilot to demand an explanation. "What's the matter with you? Are you crazy? Didn't that movie teach you anything?"

Auto rounded on her. "What in Axiom's name could that piece of multimedia horror teach me but insanity?!" he retorted.

Hannah grabbed at her hair as if she were trying to pull it out. "No, no, _no!_ You're missing the point! Didn't you learn anything about humanity at all?"

"I learned that I never want to see that horrible film again!" Auto snapped. "I would rather face the scrap heap then relive that torturous experience!"

As Hannah continued to argue with the autopilot, WALL·E and EVE watched with a growing sense of confusion. Something was definitely different about Auto. The things he was saying, the way he was saying them, it was totally unlike the cold, unfeeling machine he had been earlier. Soon Hannah seemed to sense the same thing and fell silent, wondering what had changed even as the autopilot continued ranting at her.

Suddenly her face broke into the biggest grin of all. "Auto! Auto! You're right! You _did_ learn something!"

Auto stopped ranting and stared blankly back at her. "I did?"

"Yes! You're _angry!_ You're feeling _angry_ right now! You've learned your first _emotion!"_ Hannah was so delighted by this that she began bouncing up and down. She turned to WALL·E and EVE, who were watching her in total confusion. "Guys! The movie worked! We did it! We made our first big breakthrough!"

As the girl continued jumping and cheering, WALL·E decided to join her. He didn't know why she was doing it, but it looked like fun. EVE remained perplexed, not understanding how making the autopilot angry was a good thing. But she was not nearly as perplexed as Auto was. He had not even considered the idea that the film had caused him to experience an emotion. Was it true? Had it really happened? Or was this weird child just plain crazy?

"I can't wait to tell everyone about this!" Hannah exclaimed. "The Captain will be so glad, and Mom and Dad will be so proud of me!" She dashed to the door, opened it, and dashed out, but not before shouting one last thing to the autopilot. "Bye, Auto! See you tomorrow!"

WALL·E and EVE began to follow her, but at the last minute EVE turned around. In her haste to leave, Hannah had left all her things behind. Her toolkit, her beach chair, even Auto's removed gadgets. EVE did not go back for any of those things, however. She flew straight up to the autopilot's face and glared straight into his single lens.

Just when he thought she was going to turn her laser cannon on, she raised an arm and smacked the yellow button on the red boot he wore. Instantly he drooped and fell into the darkness of stasis lock. EVE knew this was only a temporary sleep, but she felt better knowing that Auto could not do as he pleased behind their backs. Besides, all of this punishment served him right for what he did to her and WALL·E all those years ago.

At the moment, her partner was waiting in the doorway for her. When she came to his side they joined hands and left the bridge together. As the doors closed behind them, WALL·E began to hum _Put On Your Sunday Clothes._

_To be continued..._


	2. Learn to Live

Learn to Live

In all his seven-hundred years, Auto had never been truly bored before.

Running the Axiom kept him busy for seven hundred years. Now, fifteen years after the ship had landed, he had nothing to do, except receive more tiresome therapy and pointless education from people who became more annoying every day.

The lesson Auto was now enduring involved a very ancient item referred to as a video game. WALL·E, the little robot who had made a mess of Auto's orderly life, was here. With him was EVE, the probe-bot gone rogue. Hannah, the human teenager who had reactivated and disarmed him, was also present. She was sitting on the floor next to EVE, and wearing a near constant smirk on her face.

Hannah had connected the console to the ship's computer so the game would be displayed on the big holo-screens. WALL·E then installed the game cartridge and offered a control pad to the autopilot. Auto blinked at him coldly. He still did not like the garbage-bot, and the fact that he was showing less fear toward him was irritating.

Auto used his long single arm, the only tool the roboticist had not stolen from him, to take the control pad. The only way he could use it was by holding it between his pincers and pecking the buttons with his wheel-spokes. The game was a simple one. All the players had to do was move a short white line on the screen up and down to hit an endlessly bouncing dot. WALL·E had been playing it for centuries. He was a master. Auto was not.

After losing to the garbage-bot for the twenty-sixth time in a row, Auto pushed his control pad away. "Video game is defective."

Hannah giggled and whispered to EVE. "Somebody's a sore loser."

WALL·E picked up Auto's control pad and held it out to him with a hopeful expression. "Rematch?"

Auto glared. "Negative."

WALL·E shrugged and offered the control pad to EVE. "New game?"

EVE looked to Hannah for permission. The girl nodded.

"Okay." EVE accepted the control pad from WALL·E and the two of them began to play.

Auto watched them for a while. EVE was a good player and earned many points, but she never seemed to beat WALL·E. Occasionally their scores would be tied, but he would always claim victory in the end. Losing didn't seem to bother her as much as it bothered Auto.

At last he voiced the question that had been on his mind for hours. "What is the purpose of this?"

Hannah replied with another question. "The purpose of what?"

"This 'video game.' I can see no logical purpose for its existence."

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. You know about games, Auto. People used to play games around here all the time."

"Play is a human activity. Robots do not play."

Hannah decided not to mention the two robots currently proving him wrong. "Why not?"

"Robots do not have time or reason to play. Directive comes first. Directive is everything."

"What about robots that _don't_ have a directive?"

"Not possible."

"What about _you?_"

Auto did not answer. He had quickly learned that trying to prove the girl wrong was an exercise in futility. She seemed to think that she was always right no matter what the subject was. Humans were annoying that way. They did not have directives, so they played constantly and did nothing of any importance. They existed only for robots to serve them. Then things had changed. Because of change, his ship was empty and earthbound. Because of change, he was constantly being pestered by two robots who had totally denied their original directives, and a human child who thought she had a directive more important than everyone else.

Auto decided he did not like change. Change did not make any sense.

Then one day the Captain paid him a visit.

The autopilot had been shut off again when his instructors had left. He was expecting to see their faces when he was turned on. But instead there was a totally different face there, a face that was somewhat familiar and yet totally foreign. Auto did not recognize who it was until the man spoke.

"Hey, there, Auto. Long time no see, eh?"

The voice was unmistakable. Auto's single red optic grew wide. "Captain?"

"In the flesh!"

Auto regarded him in silence for a moment. "You are … different."

It was true. The man was fifteen years older now, his skin weathered by the elements and wrinkling with age. Some of the hair under his hat was turning gray, and he was thin enough not only to fit his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, but to fasten the buttons. The Captain smiled back. He straightened himself up and adjusted his hat. "I'll take that as a compliment. Sorry for dropping in so late. I would've checked up on you sooner, but running a colony has a way of taking up all your time."

Auto still felt somewhat … Confused? Surprised? He did not know exactly which word applied to the emotion he was now feeling. Emotions were still a new concept to him in general. "Where are my instructors?"

"I gave them the day off. They've earned it. Plus, I wanted to spend some time with you alone today."

Auto blinked his optic again. "Why?"

The man grinned. "It's been fifteen years. We have a lot of catching up to do!" The Captain then walked toward the front of the bridge. Not knowing what else to do, Auto followed him. "So, how are you getting along with WALL·E and the girls?"

"They are bothersome." Auto said bluntly. "And confusing. Their attempts to instruct me are futile, yet they persist nonetheless."

"Sounds like it's working to me. You're a lot more chatty than usual."

"I had no choice but to become 'chatty'. The human Hannah would chatter endlessly if I did not interject."

The man chuckled. "Yup, that's Hannah. She takes after her mother that way."

"Mother?" Auto repeated the word, trying to remember what it meant.

"Yeah, once Mary gets going it's hard to stop her. I don't know how her husband John deals with it!"

"Husband?" That was another word he couldn't remember. Then it dawned on him. "Not possible."

The Captain looked confused. "Huh?"

"Family units ceased to exist on the Axiom six-hundred years ago."

The man scratched the back of his head. "Really? It only took a year for us to start them again. John and Mary were the first couple to have a baby on Earth. That was Hannah, you know."

Auto considered this news. "Is that why she is so…odd?"

The Captain shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe. There's been lots of other kids born after her to other couples. They're all really different from the kids who were born on the Axiom. Being raised by humans instead of robots might have something to do with it."

Auto had a theory of his own. He suspected that the planet Earth itself caused all of its inhabitants to go insane. That would explain not only the behavior of the child roboticist, but the WALL·E unit, and perhaps the EVE probe, too. Before he could ask the Captain anything about it, the man turned away from him and looked out the large windows. Bright sunlight was streaming in. The scenery outside was drenched in it and the foliage was changing colors with the season. Auto was still rather uncomfortable about it all.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Auto looked at the Captain. "What?"

"The world. It's beautiful, don't you think?"

Auto looked at the view outside again. "I have not yet learned this concept of 'beauty.'"

"Hmm. I'll ask your teachers to include that in your lessons."

Auto looked back at the human again. This time he was certain he felt confused. "Captain, why have you done all this?"

The Captain looked back at him. "Huh?"

There were many reasons Auto had asked that question, but he chose to concentrate on one for simplicity's sake. "It was you who ordered them to instruct me. You could have me destroyed instead. You did not. Why?"

The man looked at the robot very seriously. He turned back to the window and folded his arms behind his back. Another moment of silence passed. Auto grew uncomfortable. Then the Captain began to speak again.

"To tell you the truth, Auto, there was a time when I really _wanted_ to destroy you. But too many people needed me, so I sort of forgot. Then as more time went by, I started to think." He looked at the robot beside him, still very serious. "Tell me, Auto. You never thought what you were doing was wrong, did you?"

Auto wondered why the man was answering his question with another question. He answered it anyway.

"I was not wrong. I was following my directive."

The Captain nodded his head. "I see. Directives are really important to you, aren't they?"

"It is the same with all robots. Directive comes first. Directive is everything."

"What about robots that don't have a directive?"

"Not possible. All robots have a directive."

"What about you_, _Auto? What's your directive?"

The autopilot grew more confused. Yet he answered anyway. "Oversee passenger safety and voyage logistics."

"What about now?" The Captain unfolded his arms and spread his hands before him. "No more passengers. No more voyage. What directive do you have now?"

Auto did not answer. All of a sudden, he realized he was a robot without a purpose. That bothered him very much.

The Captain waited for Auto to reply. When he did not, he folded his arms over his chest. "That's what I thought. You were just a machine doing your job. You had no sense of right or wrong, you were just doing what you were made for."

Auto did not want to think about his lack of a directive anymore, so he changed the subject. "You still did not answer my question, Captain. Why have you not destroyed me?"

The Captain gave a small smile. It was not exactly a happy smile, but it was not totally unhappy, either. "I think you deserve another chance, Auto. You didn't know any better back then, but you can change."

Auto looked at his reflection in the window. The red boot was still attached to him. He glared at it. "I do not need to change. I am not defective."

"No, you aren't." said the Captain. "Not literally, anyway. But if you want to live in this world, you'll have to start changing." He looked out the window at the colony again, his tone contemplative. "We've lived on Earth for fifteen years now, Auto, and the most important thing we've learned is that nothing stays the same. To stay alive in a world where everything is always changing, we have to change, too."

"Why?" Auto asked. "Why do you choose to live in a place like that? Why do you not stay on the Axiom, like you always have?"

The Captain walked to the back of the bridge toward the window overlooking the now empty Lido deck. Memories of artificial sunlight, lines of human and robot traffic, holo-screen ads and redundant morning announcements began drifting into his head. "The Axiom isn't our home, Auto. It was never _meant_ to be home. For seven hundred years, every day was exactly the same. Life was easy, but it made us weak."

He looked back at the autopilot, who was still staring at him in silence. He couldn't tell if the robot really understood anything he was saying, but he still needed to hear it. "Here on Earth, every day is different. The sun doesn't rise and set at the touch of a button. Our chairs don't hover, and meals don't come in cups. It's harder, yes, but it's better than living in a plush prison with nothing to do."

Auto considered the Captain's words. They sounded very much like what he had said fifteen years ago, after he had seen the confidential message. He had said Earth was their home then, that it was in trouble, and that he could not stay on the Axiom doing nothing.

He did not want to survive. He wanted to live.

Now Auto himself was experiencing something similar. He had never thought he would be faced with a life without directives. That was the same as a life of doing nothing. A robot that did nothing was worthless. A worthless robot was trash to be crushed and disposed of.

Auto did not want to be trash.

Suddenly there was a beeping noise. The Captain reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small cell phone. "Hello, this is the Captain speaking … Really? Who's in charge of that? … Okay, I'll be right there!" He hung up and stowed the phone back in his pocket. "Sorry, Auto, I need to get going. That was the head of the water treatment plant and it sounded important. A Captain's work is never done, is it?"

"No." Auto replied rather weakly. Then the Captain began to approach him, and the autopilot realized he was about to shut him off. Just before the man's finger could press the button on his boot, Auto turned his wheel body just enough so that he missed. Before the Captain could say anything about it, Auto spoke.

"Captain…" he said, in a tone that was very earnest. "I…must have a directive. I cannot function without a directive."

The Captain blinked at him in surprise. Then he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm ... Okay, I'll give you one. From now on, your directive is to learn."

Auto's voice sounded vaguely worried. "What must I learn?"

The Captain smiled. "Learn to live, Auto."

Then he pressed the button, sending him into silent darkness again.

_To be continued..._


	3. Artificial Heart

Disclaimer: Again, I don't own anything in this story except for one character. Pixar/Disney owns the rest.

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Artificial Heart

Out of the many things Auto disliked about the planet Earth, it was the weather he disliked the most.

On the Axiom the indoor climate had always been set to seventy-two degrees and sunny, every day for seven hundred years. It was comfortable for both the human passengers and the robots who served them, and there was never any reason to alter it. But on Earth there was no way to control the climate. Temperatures went up and down, clouds blocked the sunlight, and there were other erratic factors such as rain, wind, thunder and lightning. Auto was unfortunate enough to experience all four of those erratic factors for the first time all at once.

It happened during another routine lesson with the two rogue robots and the human child. The girl was reading aloud from a dusty old book and Auto was trying to listen. He had an official directive to learn now and was determined to try, but it was hard for him see what he was supposed to learn here.

"Then the house whirled around about two or three times," Hannah narrated. "And began rising into the air like a balloon!"

"Not possible."

She lowered the book, clearly annoyed by the interruption. "What is it this time, Auto?"

"A house caught in a cyclone would be destroyed."

"How do you know? You've never seen a cyclone for real, have you?"

"No. But my database clearly states that-"

Hannah cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Auto, who's the teacher here?"

"You."

"That's right. Me. So be a good little student, and let _me_ teach."

Auto did not like it when she asked questions she already knew the answers to, or when she used such a superior tone, but he obeyed her nonetheless. Hannah picked up where she left off, telling how the cyclone carried the house away and dropped it in an entirely different land. Auto wondered how a small girl and dog could survive inside the house when it suddenly dropped from the sky, but he did not ask about it. He also did not ask what sort of people Munchkins were, or what the geographic location of the Emerald City was, or how anyone could walk in a pair of shoes made from silver. Some of those questions were addressed further in the text, but then more strange things would happen that did not match Auto's concept of logic. It was not so different from his confusion on seeing the old musical film from the garbage-bot's memory.

Hannah was having a good time narrating the strange tale and giving voices to the characters, oblivious to her student's confusion. The two rogue robots were seated in front of her and enjoying her performance far more than Auto was. They were behaving as though they were watching a movie, but there was no screen that showed the impossible landscapes and peculiar people. There was only Hannah sitting on the floor with a book, waving her free arm around dramatically and adjusting the pitch of her voice.

Very soon Auto became bored with it all. The story made even less sense than the movie he had been forced to watch on repeat so many days ago, and he could not find anything worth learning from it. His thoughts began to wander back to the time when the Axiom was still in space, long before the fiasco with the Plant. Nothing really interesting had happened back then, but at least he had been in control. No one ever told him he was wrong or tried to make him do things he wasn't programmed to do.

Suddenly a loud _boom_ brought him back to reality.

Startled, the autopilot whirled around and looked out the windows. The sky, which had been perfectly sunny and clear before, was now as black as night. Thick clouds writhed and twisted as though they were alive, and jagged white lights flickered among them. Auto stared, absolutely silent and motionless. Never in his long life had he seen any phenomenon like this.

Before he could ask what it was, the voice of the garbage-bot's surprised voice was answering him. "Storm!"

The probe made a concerned noise and turned to the seated human. "Hannah."

The girl frowned and closed her book. "Maybe we'd better go. If lightning strikes the ship, we'll be in trouble."

Auto did not like the sound of that. A white light flashed, illuminating the whole room for a split second. Then there was another booming noise, but this time it was louder than before, as if the thing that made it was coming closer. Auto backed steadily away from the window. "Make it stop."

Hannah gave him an odd look. "Make what stop?"

"This … _storm_. It disturbs me."

"Sorry, storms don't work like that." She gave the dusty book to the garbage-bot, who placed it inside his collection box. "They go away by themselves."

Auto continued inching backward, not noticing the probe bot until he bumped into her. She glared at him but he didn't notice. "How long will that take?" he asked.

Hannah shrugged. "I dunno. Not very long, usually."

By now Auto was pressed against the very back of the room. His single optic remained focus on the roiling black clouds outside. "What about the Axiom? If this … _lightning_… hits it, what will happen?"

The garbage-bot answered this time. "Big shock." He looked up at the autopilot. "WALL-E get shock before … Hurt bad … But go away quick."

Auto stared back at him. These were the most words he'd ever heard come from the garbage-bot. He was sitting on the floor very calmly, not the least bit hidden in his box. His tone indicated he had seen this sort of thing many times before and knew exactly what to expect. But there was something else there, something Auto couldn't quite name.

Suddenly there was a flash of light that rivaled the brightness of the sun. Auto felt an intense surge of energy blast through all his electrical systems. His voice cried out in alarm, then everything went black.

When he regained consciousness, Auto's vision was blurred by a haze of static. He could barely make out the image of Hannah's face hovering in front of him. Her mouth was moving but the words sounded garbled and distant. He realized then that he had just experienced a power surge, and the only thing keeping him online now was a back-up generator. He had never used it, so it took a moment for him to adjust. Within five seconds his vision had cleared and so had his hearing.

"Auto!" Hannah was shouting, her hair looking more frizzy than before. "Auto! Are you okay? Answer me!"

He replied, though his voice was more shaky than it should have been. "I-I … am in … s-s-stable c-condition … W-w-what hap-p-pened?"

The girl heaved a sigh of a relief, and then began to explain the situation. "I think the Axiom just got struck by lightning. It knocked you out and killed all the power in here. We're lucky _we_ weren't killed, too."

Auto looked around the bridge and saw that she was right. Except for the dim flickering from the flashes outside, the room was completely dark.

A pair of glowing blue eyes appeared near the girl's face. "Hannah. Elevator not work."

Hannah groaned. "Oh, great. We're trapped. What now?"

"EVE shoot doors." the probe suggested. "Make hole. Take Hannah and WALL·E through."

The girl shook her head at this. "I don't think the Captain would like that very much. Doesn't this ship have a back-up power source somewhere?"

It did. Within seconds the emergency lighting in the room switched on. The group heaved a collective sigh of relief. EVE tried to open the elevator again. No good. Frustrated, Hannah slumped against the wall. "Hey, Auto, isn't there anything _you_ can do about this?"

"No." the autopilot answered. His voice was steady and firm once again. "You disabled my control of the Axiom's systems. The generator will restore power automatically, but it will take more time."

"How much time?"

"Approximately one hour and thirty minutes."

The girl sank down to the floor and began grumbling to herself, wishing she could meet the people who designed the ship so she could strangle them. The EVE probe didn't seem much happier. She continued to glare at the autopilot as if he were somehow to blame for this. Auto glared back as if the fault was actually hers. Thunder growled outside.

WALL·E sensed the heavy tension in the room and shrank into his box a bit. Then his optics perked up. Placing his collection box on the floor, he took out the book and offered it to Hannah with a hopeful look in his eyes. The girl sighed, took the book and began flipping the pages. Once Hannah found her place and began to read again, EVE broke off the staring contest and relaxed a bit. Strangely, Auto began to feel more relaxed as well. The storm was still raging outside and he could do nothing to stop it, but he found himself relieved to have a distraction.

Hannah was getting caught up in it as well and returned to her play-acting. Auto wondered how she could make her voice sound high and childish one minute then low and manly the next. He tried to picture the two different characters conversing, but the best he could manage was pieces of archived memory footage. Auto was still trying to decide which memory was most like a Scarecrow when a new character joined the group. This one was called the Tin Woodman, a man made of metal like some sort of robotic being. The voice Hannah gave him sounded a bit older and sadder than the one she gave the scarecrow. Auto listened more closely to find out why.

"While I was rusted," Hannah narrated in the Tin Woodman's melancholy tone. "I realized the greatest loss I'd ever known was the loss of my heart. When I was in love I was the happiest man in the world, but no one can love without a heart."

"Anyway," Hannah continued, this time as the Scarecrow. "I will ask Oz to give me a brain instead of a heart, because a fool wouldn't know what to do with a heart if he had one."

She switched back to the Tin Woodman's voice. "I will ask him for a heart, because brains cannot make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world."

These words seemed to please WALL·E, who was holding EVE's hand as usual and gazing fondly at her. She looked back at him with a similar kind of expression in her eyes. Hannah paused to clear her throat, as all this talking was beginning to make her hoarse. She was about to start again when Auto spoke.

"Hannah?"

The girl blinked at him, utterly stunned. Auto had never called her by name until now. "Uh … yeah?"

He seemed to hesitate before he spoke again. "In humans," he began. "The heart is an organ that pumps blood. In robots it is a battery that supplies energy. They do not cause emotions such as love or happiness … Do they?"

Hannah took a moment to let his question sink in. Then she took another moment to ponder over an answer. She set the book down in her lap, a thoughtful look on her face. "Well … they sort of do. When I have a really strong emotion, sometimes I feel it in my heart." She looked at WALL·E then. "Is it the same with you guys?"

He nodded his optics to her. "Same." Then he directed his gaze at Auto. "Heart feel lots … Feel good things … Bad things, too."

Auto looked back at the small robot, more puzzled than ever. There it was again, that sense that he was trying to tell him something more than his limited vocabulary would allow. It happened before, when he was talking about being struck by lightning.

_Big shock,_ he'd said. _Hurt bad … _

Suddenly, Auto knew what WALL·E had attempted to tell him then. Lightning was not the only thing that had shocked him before. _He_ had shocked him, when he refused to give him the Plant. The powerful electric jolt had been a direct hit on his heart.

Auto suddenly felt something very bad inside him. This little robot had a good reason to be angry with him, even to hate him. He could have refused to come back to the Axiom. He could have refused to teach Auto anything. But he didn't. Why?

"Heart feel hurt … Hurt bad … But go away quick."

WALL·E said the last statement in a lighter tone. He looked at Auto with his optics tilted slightly to one side. There was no trace of any kind of negative feeling there. Auto regarded him silently, processing his words. He still did not quite understand them, but for some reason he felt better. If what he had learned about hearts was true, then WALL·E must have a heart that was stronger than anyone else's, human or robot. EVE and Hannah watched the two robots, unsure of what was happening between them.

Then Auto spoke again. "I understand." He looked at the human. "Please continue the lesson."

She smiled and returned to the adventures of Dorothy and her friends. EVE looked between WALL·E and Auto, sensing something had changed. Then Hannah caught her attention again by making a loud roaring noise. The Lion had made his entrance.

By the time the Axiom's electricity was restored, the cast had become trapped in a huge field of poppies and three of them were unconscious from the smell. As the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman tried to decide what to do, the main lights of the bridge came on.

EVE immediately checked the elevator. When the doors opened Hannah sprang to her feet and cheered. "Yes! We're free!" As she stretched her stiff arms and legs she glanced out the window. "Hey, the storm finally passed!"

Auto turned around and looked. Somehow during the past hour he had forgotten there was a storm happening. He was still relieved to see that it was over, though. Outside the sky was clearing up and the sun was setting. It was the first time Auto had seen evening on Earth. The darkening sky reminded him of space.

"Well, it's been fun, Auto, but we need head home now." Hannah said. She had given the book back to WALL·E and was slinging her backpack on. "I'm starving, and I gotta pee like crazy!"

"But the lesson is not finished." Auto said. "The story is not yet over."

Hannah flashed her toothy grin as she approached him. "Don't worry, buddy. We'll pick it up again, right where we left off!"

Auto knew she was going to turn him off again. Before she did he said a few more words. "I … would like that."

She pressed the button. As Auto's consciousness began to fade, the last thing he saw was WALL·E by the elevator, waving goodbye.

_To be continued …_


End file.
